When The Bold Type returns for its fifth and final season, the relationship status of Sutton (Meghann Fahy) and Richard (Sam Page) will most definitely be complicated.
Last season, the two got married and decided — at the altar — to stay a bi-coastal couple for Sutton's much-deserved Scarlet promotion. Soon after the nuptials, she threw up in a planter and learned she was pregnant, only to suffer an early miscarriage. The experience led her to realize that she didn't want to have kids, a crushing blow to Richard who wants nothing more than to one day be a dad. The Bold Type's resident couple has always found a way to make it work, but this time, they just couldn't find common ground. Richard leaves and Sutton wonders if he'll ever come back, going as far as to take off her wedding ring in the season 4 finale. It didn't help that she had gone back home to Pennsylvania and hooked up with her married ex.
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So will Richard return for the final season? The answer is yes, Page will appear in season 5. (He pops up in this season's trailer to tell her he misses her and ask if they can live in "the dream a little while longer.") Will Richard and Sutton get back together? Well, we'll have to wait and see the final six episodes to know that. But maybe the real question of this final season is should Sutton and Richard stay together?
The co-workers turned May-December lovers (he's 15 years her senior) have been the rare Bold Type couple that has weathered the storm: unequal power dynamics, age differences, working-class resentment, daddy (and mommy) issues, long distance relationships, and fears of losing one's independence. Looking back, they actually weathered a few hurricanes, but always found ways to compromise through it all.
However, compromising when it comes to starting a family means someone loses: Either Richard won't get to be a father or Sutton risks becoming an absentee mom. Not to mention, either choice comes with a high risk of resentment, which might already be building. In last season's penultimate episode, Richards tells her that he's always making concessions for her after Sutton reveals she doesn't want kids. He tells her that she's always choosing work or her friends over him.
"I knew it on our wedding night. I knew that I was going to be the one who would always be adjusting," he tells her. But, she points out, he blew up their New York City life to follow his dreams to California. "So we can adjust for your job, but not mine? Cause yours is more important," she says tearfully.
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And neither is wrong. Their careers have always been important to them and that passion and drive is what they've always loved and respected about the other. In recent seasons, they've made big decisions that prioritize their work over their relationship, causing the other to adjust their plans, their expectations. It's possible that right now their careers are the most important things in each of their lives and they can't be the best partners. That's hard to admit, but, in her vows, Sutton said Richard was "my truth and without truth I am nothing." In this case, the truth hurts because this fight isn't about their jobs — it's about them wanting entirely different things for their futures.
The Bold Type has never questioned the love Sutton and Richard share. In fact, their on-and-off romance has been a huge part of the series, showcasing just how rewarding and complicated monogamy can be. Especially true when you're young and trying to establish some kind of work-life balance.
Sutton is only 26 years old and is still very much finding herself. When we first met her, she was worried she'd become her estranged mom, who struggled with alcoholism and often left her to fend for herself. With Richard's support — along with her besties Kat (Aisha Dee) and Jane (Katie Stevens) — she learned to trust herself and others. She found confidence in her abilities as a stylist and comfort in the support her boyfriend gave her. In him, the self-sufficient Sutton found a sense of family and security, but throughout time, she might have become too reliant on Richard. Maybe she started to lose herself before she even found out who that is. "I don't know who I am without him," she admits to her friends in the finale.
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Sutton doesn't seem to know what she wants yet. Honestly, who among us really knows what we'll want in a decade or two? But the future is always a gamble, and we make choices that may or may not pay off. Right now, Sutton has to make a difficult choice, but it's not whether to be with Richard or not. It's about figuring out who she wants to be, full stop. She's not her mother, but she's certainly more than Richard's wife. In this final season, she should take the opportunity to find herself. To do that, she needs to be on her own.
This is not to say she has to get a divorce; perhaps she just takes a break from her new husband to prioritize things. Sutton needs time to figure out, on her own, what and who she really wants. Maybe, in the end, it will be Richard. After all, The Bold Type's showrunner Wendy Straker Hauser told TVLine, “We love Sutton and Richard. They haven’t hit real, huge roadblocks before. I’m hopeful that they’ll get to know themselves better, and we’ll see. I certainly don’t think the door is closed forever.”
But maybe it's one of those, "When God closes a door, he opens a window" situations. The Bold Type has never been afraid to show the messy parts of growing up. Sutton deciding whether or not she should get a divorce feels like a topic worth diving into, as does why she doesn't want to start a family with Richard. Sutton certainly doesn't have to justify her decision, but Fahy told Variety that she "think[s] there are a lot of reasons why" she might not want kids. Some of which stems from her own upbringing.
"I don’t totally feel that she has explored all of that within herself," Fahy told Variety. "Maybe she’ll do that and not change her mind, or maybe she’ll do that and change her mind." Either way, Sutton's friends will be there to help her take that next step.